Base Wood Fired Pizza founder Shane Crilly. Photo: Gerry Mooney
Entrepreneur Shane Crilly has stepped down as a director of companies in the Base Pizza group of high-end “artisanal” takeaways, according to filings submitted to the Companies Registration Office (CRO).
The move comes just weeks after accounts for the business founded in 2007 by the lawyer-turned-businessman show the Base Wood Fired Pizza chain made €1.3m profits last year, after taking in outside investment at the end of 2022.
The business had survived the financial crash, which struck not long after it was set up and the Covid-19 pandemic, to bounced back to profit last year.
Outside investor Loyola Ireland Management Holdings Limited had become an 80pc shareholder in 2022, alongside the chain’s founder Shane Crilly’s 20pc stake.
Loyola is the investment vehicle of Stephen Cooney and Brian O’Malley, who own or have stakes in a number of business in the capital including The Bath and Old Spot pubs in Dublin 4.
The 2022 restructuring at Base involved a new chief executive, Clyde Jamison, who was a former country manager in Ireland for Domino’s, joining the business. The CRO filing shows Mr Crilly stood down as director of seven companies in the group on May 16.
The most recent accounts filed on companies that make up the business, including Base Control Management, showed the group’s well-established outlets in the Dublin suburbs of Ballsbridge and Terenure are the main cash cows, contributing combined dividends of €2m to the group last year.
Inter-connected sets of accounts for companies within the group show Base Pizza Ballsbridge provided a dividend of €1.2m to the company that also operates an outlet in Terenure, south Dublin. Between them they paid €2m to the Base Control Management entity.
That compared with a €200,000 dividend from a branch in Glenageary and €100,000 from Base Pizza Stillorgan Limited. The group also has outlets in Lucan in west Dublin, Killester in the north of the city, Stillorgan in the south and Greystones in Wicklow.
The Base Control Management accounts show it employed 85 staff last year and payroll costs were €2.89m.
The full year accounts for Base Control Management show a substantial swing from a loss of €350,000 in 2022 to a profit for the year of €1.3m in 2023.
Those numbers pushed retained earnings at the group from a deficit in 2022 to a small surplus at the end of last year.